The silence inside the collapsed Pillar wasn't empty. It was heavy. It tasted like ash and static electricity.
Kai Vance lay beneath three tons of reinforced concrete and celestial stone. Any other human would have been a smeared red stain on the floor. But the violet energy from the Primal Core was stitching him back together—messily. He could hear his own bones snapping back into place, a wet, rhythmic sound that made his stomach churn.
[REGENERATION IN PROGRESS: 14%... 22%...] [WARNING: HOST BODY IS BELOW STRENGTH THRESHOLD. CORE STABILIZATION AT RISK.]
"Shut... up..." Kai wheezed.
He shoved a slab of stone off his chest. His left arm was different. It wasn't skin anymore; it was a mass of shifting, dark smoke held together by jagged purple veins. Every time he breathed, the shadows on the walls seemed to lean toward him, drawn to the hole where his soul used to be.
Then, he heard it. A low, guttural growl that vibrated in his very marrow.
From the dust of the collapsed ceiling, a survivor emerged. But it wasn't a scavenger.
It was a Steel-Fang Lycan, a Rank-D monster. It had been wounded by the Seven Seats' earlier raid—one of its eyes was a scorched pit, and its silver fur was matted with black blood. It had been left behind to die in the collapse, just like Kai.
Now, it was hungry. And Kai was the only meat left.
The beast coiled its muscles, its claws scraping sparks off the stone. In the old world, Kai would have been dead before he could blink. Rank-D was an apex predator to a Rank-F scavenger.
But as the wolf lunged, the world slowed down.
[EYE OF THE REAPER ACTIVATED.] [ANALYZING TARGET...] [RANK: D] [WEAKNESS DETECTED: CRACKED STERNUM (Internal Bleeding)]
Kai didn't move out of fear; he moved out of instinct. As the Lycan flew through the air, jaws wide enough to crush his skull, Kai's new left arm moved on its own. The shadows exploded outward like lances.
They didn't just hit the wolf. They pierced it.
The shadowy tendrils dived into the beast's chest, wrapping around its heart. The Lycan shrieked, a sound of pure terror, as its physical body began to wither and turn grey.
[SKILL TRIGGERED: EXTRACTION] [HARVESTING ESSENCE...] [0%... 40%... 85%...]
Kai felt a rush of heat pour into his spine. It felt like drinking liquid lightning. His muscles expanded, his senses sharpened until he could hear the heartbeat of a spider crawling a hundred yards away.
[EXTRACTION COMPLETE.] [YOU HAVE CONSUMED A RANK-D ESSENCE.] [LEVEL UP: 1 -> 4] [PERMANENT STAT GAIN: +12 AGILITY] [NEW SUB-SKILL LEARNED: BURST SPRINT (RANK-D)]
The Lycan hit the floor as a pile of dry, brittle bone and dust. It was gone. Not just dead—completely erased from existence.
Kai stood up, his rags fluttering in the cold draft. He looked at his hands. He felt... dangerous. For the first time in his life, he wasn't the prey.
"Agility..." he whispered.
He took a single step forward, and the world blurred. In a fraction of a second, he was at the other side of the chamber, his feet leaving cracks in the stone.
He looked up at the miles of rubble blocking the exit. Above that rubble, somewhere in the sunlight, the Seven Seats were celebrating. They thought they had sealed the tomb.
Kai's purple eyes glowed in the dark.
"Enjoy the sunlight while it lasts," he muttered, his voice echoing with a strange, metallic resonance. "Because I'm coming to take the rest."
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: NEW QUEST GENERATED] [GOAL: REACH THE SURFACE] [REWARD: ???]